Case Study for Agency
03-1033321-332

CASE STUDY I: Establishing Thought Leadership in an Emerging Market

Situation:
ThinkFree, Inc., a provider of office suite applications, had developed
a deep and unique compatibility with Microsoft’s Office applications.
It retooled its applications for the Web 2.0 world and engaged our team
in March 2006 to launch its new free online
suite, ThinkFree Online.

Challenge:
Tap into the window of opportunity presented with the introduction of
Google-Writely in March 2006 and get ThinkFree positioned on the
thought leadership map for this emerging category of office and
personal productivity tool.

Strategy:
Build awareness of the benefits to consumers
and IT enthusiasts

Create credibility for ThinkFree

Significantly increase ThinkFree Online subscriber base of 50,000

Tactics:
Make company approachable for consumers

Embrace art of storytelling

Target technology-friendly communities

Results:
Secured 60 pieces of coverage between April – June 2006, with more than
45 million impressions, most of which were positive

Named PC World 2006 World Class Award winner and one of The 100 Best
Products of the Year

Tripled its subscriber base by end of July 2006.

Since August 2006, company coverage has appeared in Red Herring, The
Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek and The New York Times.

Company has been featured in numerous blogs, including the influential
TechCrunch.

Radio and TV outreach has also produced results including Craig
Crossman’s Computer America and ABC News “Ahead of the Curve” segment.

Subscriber base numbered more than 250,000 by Spring 2007.

CASE STUDY II: Driving Feature Story Coverage Using a Survey

Situation:
SonicWALL is a provider of network security and related offerings sold
to businesses. A client since 2004, it approached us in 2005 to support
an effort to position the company as a top provider of solutions
supporting the remote workforce trend.

Challenge:
SonicWALL was looking to raise general brand awareness via tech trade
and mainstream media, which was a new approach for the company since
its prior outreaches had been primarily product-based.

Strategy:
The team commissioned a survey regarding the online habits of remote
workers. Some fun questions dealing with the remote worker lifestyle
were included.

Tactics:
The press release and pitch focused on the more fun elements that the
survey revealed, particularly how some 10 percent of telecommuters wore
no clothing as they worked from their home PCs. Hoffman pitched the
story to a broad segment of the media, and broadcast PR was used to
attract local Silicon Valley TV stations.

Results:
The content was a hit -- for a short spell after the news was released,
doing a "Google search on the phrase "Naked Telecommuters" produced a
widely syndicated article on the survey results.

Because the content was "evergreen" in nature and not tied to a
specific date, coverage rolled in globally for about 6 months.
BusinessWeek.com, The San Jose Mercury News, The New York Post, Money
magazine, SmallBusinessPipeline, LinuxWorld, CXOToday and InfoWorld
referenced the survey.

The survey was so effective that a second survey, this time of managers
of remote workers, is set to be publicized in May 2007.